The place they took Quan to smelled like citrus cleaner and warm plastic—like someone had tried to disinfect fear and sell it back as self-care.
It wasn’t a police station. It didn’t even cosplay one. The building had murals: lotus petals hugging a skyline, cartoon families breathing together under soft rain. A water dispenser hummed gently. A wall screen cycled civic affirmations in pastel fonts that made coercion look like bedtime.
STABILITY IS A SHARED PRACTICE.
REST IS PATRIOTISM.
COMPLIANCE IS CARE.
Quan stood on a matte-gray floor that didn’t echo. Soundproofing again—karaoke rooms, interrogation rooms, same foam, different songs.
A receptionist with kind eyes waved him toward a seating area.
“Mr. Pham,” she said softly. “Thank you for participating.”
“I didn’t,” Quan replied.
Her smile didn’t change. “Participation is a spectrum.”
A compliance officer approached. Tablet in one hand, cup of electrolyte water in the other. The kind of person who would apologize while reordering your life.
“We’re not here to punish,” the officer said. “We’re here to support stability. Your technical background is valuable.”
Quan didn’t take the water. “So is my freedom.”
The officer’s eyes softened, practiced. “Freedom includes the freedom to rest.”
They guided him down a hallway lit like a spa. Frosted doors. Quiet footsteps. No locks you could see. Control lived in the architecture of choices: sit, hydrate, breathe, comply—choose any order you liked.
At the end was a room with a circular table, a potted plant too perfect to be real, and a wall screen showing a slow-motion river.
The BORING ROOM, Quan thought.
The officer gestured to a chair. “Sit. Hydrate. You look depleted.”
Quan sat because refusal was data too.
The officer tapped the tablet, and the wall screen shifted from river footage to a dashboard—heatmaps, calm curves, keyword propagation.
HARMONIC COHESION PILOT — PHASE 1 PREP
DEPENDENCY: AMPLIFIER NODE (MISSING)
Quan kept his face blank and felt his stomach go cold.
“We know you prefer technical clarity,” the officer said gently. “We don’t want to waste your time with… narratives.”
“We have a gap,” she continued. “A missing component. We’re building redundancy. But your experience with early architecture could help us ensure national stability.”
Quan said nothing. Silence thickened. The room didn’t press. It waited.
The dashboard flipped to a map of Saigon. Nodes pulsed like obedient arteries: clinics, parks, temples, transit hubs.
NODE BEACON DEPLOYMENT — IN PROGRESS
PARTICIPATION PRESSURE — INCREASING
SYNTHETIC AMPLIFIER PROJECTION — 68% CONFIDENCE
A prosthetic, Quan realized. They were building a substitute amplifier out of people—coerced micro-syncs stitched into hardware.
The officer watched him watch. “We’re not interested in recovery of a specific object,” she said carefully. “We’re interested in outcomes.”
“So you’re coercing mass micro-sync participation until you can approximate the missing node,” Quan said.
The officer’s smile held. “We’re offering wellness access. People are free to participate.”
Quan met her eyes. “And people are free to wait twenty-two minutes with a coughing child.”
A flicker crossed her face—tiny, involuntary.
The wall screen shifted again, and a file opened without the officer touching anything.
ETHICS LAB ARCHIVE — ACCESS GRANTED (LIMITED)
Quan’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t you.”
“We maintain historical transparency,” she said.
The archive displayed two project branches from four years ago:
- HARMONIC COHESION (State)
- LOTUS PROTOCOL — BLOOM BRANCH (Forked)
Under each: definitions of consent.
State version: CONSENT = COMPLIANCE CONFIRMED
Lotus version: CONSENT = VOLUNTARY LONGING
A note attached to the fork record:
KIET NGUYEN EXIT — IDEOLOGICAL DISPUTE
SUBJECT: “YOU CANNOT PATCH PEOPLE WITHOUT ASKING WHO OWNS THE UPDATE.”
Quan stared until the words became an accusation.
This wasn’t two enemies.
It was one project that had a breakup so messy the whole country was forced to pick a side.
Quan swallowed his anger until it became a hard stone he could carry. He needed access. If he fought, they’d cut him off. If he played along, they’d reshape him with rest and affirmations until he forgot what he was resisting.
Play compliant.
Borrow their boredom.
Use it.
“If you’re building a synthetic amplifier,” he said carefully, “your beacons will create uneven coupling. You’ll get spikes. Accidents. Memory loss events.”
Her expression softened, pleased. “That’s why we want you.”
“Then show me your deployment schedule. I can tell you where your spikes will happen first.”
She hesitated. Then she tapped.
A list appeared.
CLINICS — 04:00 rollout window
PARKS — 06:00
TEMPLES — 08:00
TRANSIT — 10:00
Clinics first. Of course. You cannot boycott a fever.
A printer in the corner whirred, spitting out a “Wellness Participation Pamphlet” in smiling pastel.
Quan leaned back, casual, and let his hand drift to the pamphlet as if obeying.
Inside the fold, in tiny gray text meant for nobody, was a line item:
PHASE 1 WILL TRIGGER AT CLINICS FIRST.
Quan slid the pamphlet under his sleeve.
The officer stood. “We’ll schedule your next support session. Please rest. Hydrate. Think about how you want to contribute.”
They guided him back through the hallway.
Quan caught the receptionist’s eyes again—the kind-eyed one.
As she bent to pick up a dropped brochure, her badge flashed:
NGO THU HA — STABILITY LIAISON
The name snagged in Quan’s memory. Ethics Lab intern list. A footnote he’d forgotten.
The Lab hadn’t died.
It had grown into customer service.
—
Outside, Mai watched a clinic gate perform gentle violence.
A line of people stood under an awning as rain fell. The gate chirped and flashed breathing prompts. A man in work boots exhaled in time with an AR circle because he needed his appointment. A young woman with a swollen ankle blinked through tears and smiled apologetically at no one.
Mai didn’t film. She wrote on paper until her hand cramped.
Bao hovered nearby, restless, eyes darting from face to face like he was trying to decide whether to save them with a joke. He didn’t. He’d learned jokes could be gasoline.
Linh stood a few meters back, under the awning edge, the cracked ceramic bead in her palm.
It was quiet.
Then it hummed.
Not matching the gate’s chime. Not matching the rain. An irregular rhythm that made her teeth ache—like something under the city trying to speak without knowing how.
The river-voice.
Do friction, she reminded herself.
Linh focused on one small thing: the breathing prompt circle floating before the man’s face.
Inhale. Exhale. Comply.
She imagined inserting a tiny delay—just enough to let him notice the prompt as external. A stutter in the chorus. A moment where choice could exist again.
The bead hummed again—questioning, not selling.
And beneath the clinic’s soft civic voice, Linh heard it, faint and shy:
WHO ARE WE?
Mai’s phone buzzed—an inbound from a dead mailbox channel.
No subject. No sender.
Just an image: a pastel wellness pamphlet photographed under a sleeve.
And one line underlined by a shaking human hand:
PHASE 1 WILL TRIGGER AT CLINICS FIRST.
Mai’s throat went dry as she looked up at the gate, at the breathing prompt, at the mother with a child who would obey anything for care.
Bao whispered, “What?”
Mai didn’t answer.
Clinics first meant Phase 1 wasn’t a day.
It was a rollout. A cascade. A slow religion delivered in four-hour windows.
And somewhere in a boring room that smelled like citrus and plastic, Quan was learning how polite hands could hold you while a country learned to breathe on command.